[Six Items or Less] All of My Outfits Look Better with Shoes

Which is a problem, because when I’m home (and I’m usually home), I don’t wear shoes. (Blah, blah, environment/cleanliness/not wanting to track motor oil/dog poop/general street filth all over the place… don’t worry, I realized it’s rude to ask guests to take their shoes off after about the second month of that. People get very nervous about the state of their socks.)

I do wear some incredibly stylish (that’s irony) slippers. I don’t think they’re helping matters. This morning I got dressed in my navy tunic-y dress, black leggings (which are not part of my six because they’re really yoga pants, yesimcheatingagain), black and tan polka dot knee socks, said slippers, and my super cozy, light blue house sweater, which is one of those long calf-length sweater coats from back when we wore long calf-length sweater coats (hi, 2002!) that has since been drafted into bathrobe duty.

“Well now we have a template,” said Dan. “For what you’ll dress like if you ever go crazy.”

I am a bit of a hot mess. But I’m telling you, if I lost the house sweater and traded the slippers for my knee-high brown leather Frye boots, all would be right with the world. Which I will do when I leave the house later today, for a look that goes something like this:

I mean, that makes a little more sense, right?

All this to say, I should have considered footwear (or rather, my frequent lack of footwear) a little more closely when I plotted out this six relying so heavily on dress-type items and legging-type items. They look adorable with shoes and even fine with bare feet, but this cozy socks and slippers business is not so cute.

Nevertheless, I am feeling pretty darn good about this experiment as we roll into Week #2. Some of the high points:

I’m not doing more laundry. I really expected this to be a serious downside of paring the wardrobe down to Six, but I’ve only done one load since we started, and it was mostly workout clothes. This must mean that I don’t actually sweat as much as I think I do — because I’m doing sniff tests and the Six just don’t seem that dirty yet.

I am discovering new clothing combinations. And getting creative with what I have was one of the whole points of this, right? Mission accomplished. On Friday I realized that I had actually never worn the navy/black sweater (it really is navy but I’m reserving the right to consider it black in future ensembles) that you guys voted for Item #6 with my jeggings. It’s the perfect slightly-longer-than-hip-length. Then I added my Campus Frye boots and that yellow and blue scarf for the outfit you see pictured below. How adorable was I?! And since the main items were already decided upon, it took me less than five minutes to get dressed and ready to leave the house, which may in fact be a VA All-Time Record.

I might want to use the term “signature look.” A lot of Sixers are doing this experiment because they like the idea of a daily uniform or signature look — something they can throw on every day to feel comfortable and fashionable, and go, without breaking a sweat. That sounded like a lovely but impossible dream to me when I first encountered this project. But by the end of last week, I wasn’t at all sick of my two sweaters, which I had alternated every day of the week. So there might be something to this idea of a daily uniform. Being me, I might want to switch it up month to month, or certainly season to season, but there’s something pretty appealing about the idea of a “February Sweater” or some such.

But it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. There’s the Shoe Issue, as already discussed. And it’s definitely too soon to say that this project has fully cured me of the anxiety-fueled wardrobe obsessing. We had friends over for lunch/hanging out on Saturday and I thought, “this will be a breeze!” I put on my ruffled cardigan, a light pink tank top, and jeans. And then spent the next hour before they arrived swapping off between cooking said lunch and changing my necklace about 112 times. Part of the problem was the fact that I had already worn the cardigan four times — so even though it’s probably my favorite item in my whole wardrobe, it wasn’t feeling new and exciting.

And apparently, for social events, I need to feel that my outfit is exciting. Why, exactly? Do I imagine that my friends are en route to my house saying “Gosh, I just can’t wait to see what VA is wearing!” as if the entire day hinges on that plot twist? Ridiculous.

But it was excitement I was after — albeit, activity-appropriate excitement. And for a lazy Saturday lunch at home, upgrading to one of my dresses felt Too Much (plus, the aforementioned shoe issue — the bootcut jeans are the only member of my Six that look remotely right with the slippers). So I was putting way too much pressure on the accessories to liven up the whole outfit. I ended up skipping them entirely and just wearing this:

Still, there would have been even more obsessing (only to end up in the first thing I put on) if I’d had access to my entire closet, filled as it is with endless clothing permutations to consider. We’ll have to keep tabs on this one.

If you’re curious to see what I’ve been wearing every single day of the challenge, check out my SIOL profile . There’s a little row of rainbow-colored squares under “Daily Check-In.” Click each square and you’ll see what I wore and how I felt about it.

[...] so it’s more that I’ve lost the energy for it. Most days, I’m either wearing the navy sweater with the yellow and turquoise scarf I discovered in Week #1, or the outfit you see above. Which are both super cute and comfy and all [...]

[...] of accessories) so it’s more that I’ve lost the energy for it. Most days, I’m either wearing the navy sweater with the yellow and turquoise scarf I discovered in Week #1, or the outfit you see above. Which are both super cute and comfy and all [...]